winhelp, Vector NTI, molecular biologists

Dan Kegel dank at kegel.com
Tue Sep 4 02:17:11 CDT 2007


Damjan wrote:
> Somebody needs to make a do-nothing-useful app, intended for Windows,
> that also installs on wine and supplies each and every DLL that
> Windows applications need but we don't have in wine (like MFC42.DLL,
> the D3DX9_xx.DLL's, new MSVCRT's, etc.). That way we can legally use
> those DLLs without a Windows licence.

Ah, but look at the EULA.  For instance, the Visual C++ 6 EULA
http://kegel.com/wine/isv/visual-studio-6-EULA.html
says in section 4.1 that any app that redistributes its redistributables
has to add "significant and primary functionality".
Thus a do-nothing app would probably not satisfy the EULA,
but a fun game might.
So, rather than creating such an app yourself, it might
be better to go look for existing freely distributed apps
(preferably from Microsoft!) which already do this.
For instance, Word Viewer 97 from MS has a very
liberal EULA that allows free redistribution,
and providesl DOCOBJ.DLL (required for Dragon Naturally Speaking)
and tahoma font.  There are probably several similar
apps from Microsoft with unlimited redistribution
that happen to bundle mfc40 and mfc42.  No reason we couldn't put
those apps up on winehq.org, and add an
easy way in Wine to download the Popular Application Pack
or something like that.
- Dan



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